Matt Ridley in London says the evidence suggests that polio vaccine researchers in the 1950s unwittingly unleashed the pandemic that is ravaging Africa.

Vaccine Theory of AIDS Origins Disputed at Royal Society

Jon Cohen

Science, Vol. 289, 15 September 2000, pp. 1850-1851.

LONDON, ENGLAND--For 2 days this week, the staid Royal Society hosted a spirited, sometimes raucous, meeting on the origin of the AIDS epidemic, the first such gathering ever held. At center stage was a controversial theory that a contaminated polio vaccine tested in Africa more than 40 years ago sparked the epidemic. The theory took a hit when researchers revealed that tests of old samples of the vaccine provided no supporting evidence, and the main proponent of the theory, British writer Edward Hooper, endured a verbal battering himself from several prominent scientists. But Hooper, unbowed, got in plenty of jabs of his own.

LONDON _ The claim that the AIDS epidemic was set off by scientists at Philadelphia's Wistar Institute during polio vaccine tests in Africa in the 1950s suffered more blows here yesterday as the Royal Society of London concluded scientific debate on the topic.

Press Release made available at the Royal Society discussion meeting on the origin of AIDS, 11-12 September 2000

The Year 2000 for many is just a chronological event, but for those of us in polio research the year was to mark the eradication of polio from this planet. It has been fifty years since I was the first scientist to successfully and safely immunize a human being against this dreaded killer.

Mr. Hooper has presented the hypothesis that CHAT, a type 1 polio vaccine developed in the US by Dr. Koprowski, and tested there, in Europe and in the former Belgian Congo in the late 50s, was contaminated with HIV. He is not the first to present that hypothesis, and many scientists, including myself, (as I was involved in those tests) have spent a great deal of time researching the origin of the HIV viruses. During the last year, I have studied Mr. Hooper's book and have done an extensive reconstruction of what actually happened 40 years ago, based on documents and testimony. I also did everything possible to facilitate the PCR tests on the vaccine samples conducted by Wistar.

Was a monumental effort to conquer polio, once the leading cause of physical disability, responsible for unleashing the world AIDS pandemic, which has stricken 53 million people, most of them in Africa?

SCIENTISTS GATHER, CONSIDER IF A POLIO RESEARCHER BROUGHT THE DISEASE TO HUMANS IN THE 1950S WITH VACCINE HE MADE FROM INFECTED CHIMP TISSUE

Was a monumental effort to conquer polio, once the leading cause of physical disability, responsible for unleashing the world AIDS pandemic, which has stricken 53 million people, most of them in Africa?

THE CHARGE: That what became the Aids virus was passed from chimp to man during experiments in the Congo to find a cure for polio. THE JURY: The world's leading Aids scientists, gathering in London next week to hear evidence at the Royal Society. THE VERDICT: will once and for all clear up one of medicine's greatest mysteries.